Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relates to the field of agriculture, and more specifically, to the process of preparing vines and similar plants for transplantation.
Description of the Related Art
Commercial production of vines for distribution involves growing the vines in a controlled environment, e.g. in a greenhouse, using specially designed pots. These pots are generally made of plastic material and are made to be reusable over several plantings. The pots, usually about a dozen or more, fit in a tray that is specially designed for transporting the vines/pot combination. After the normal growing period in the nursery, the vines are ready for transportation to the customer, e.g. wineries and grape growers, for transplanting in the field.
For transportation to the customer, the trays are placed on racks in specially configured trucks. Since the space between racks has to be sufficient to not damage the vines during transportation, each truck can only carry a limited amount of vines.
In the field, farmers have to move the racks around the vast planting area for easy access to the pots during transplanting. In large planting fields, which are typical of most major vineyards, the process becomes too cumbersome because the racks have to be moved along vast distances in fields while transplanting. Also, loose pots are strewn all over the planting field and would have to be picked up for reuse after the transplanting. Because these pots are small, they are sometimes lost in the field thus introducing foreign objects/garbage in the field. Thus, the current transplanting process is very time-consuming and labor-intensive.
To overcome the problems and limitations described above there is a need for a process of preparing and distributing vines and similar plants for efficient transplanting.